


The Way I Changed You

by ThisIsMyDesignHannibal



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Communication, Cooking, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, FannibalFest Toronto 2017, Fluff and Angst, Food Porn, Hannibal Cooking, Hannibal Loves Will, Hannibal changes Will, Kissing, M/M, Memories of the show, Mentions of sexual relationship, Murder Husbands, Post-Season/Series 03, Stag Award Winner, Transformation, Will Graham Loves His Dogs, Will Loves Hannibal, Will and Hannibal are working out their relationship, Will and Hannibal in Cuba, Will changes Hannibal, Will's becomming, flangst, light teasing, mentions of cannibalism, mentions of killing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 07:31:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12677262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisIsMyDesignHannibal/pseuds/ThisIsMyDesignHannibal
Summary: My first place fic for the Stag Awards At FannibalFest Toronto 2017!Hannibal and Will are settling into their new life together in Cuba. As Hannibal prepares to make their dinner, Will's habitual absence during this time of night gives Hannibal pause to consider the changes they have brought about in each other. Cooking has always been a solitary act of creation for Hannibal, but perhaps that's no longer what he desires...





	The Way I Changed You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HotSauce418](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotSauce418/gifts).



> This is my entry that won first prize at FannibalFest Toronto's 2017 Stag Awards! :D I'm so grateful for all the support it received and I'm over the moon to have received my award from both Janice Poon and Demore Barnes (both of whom gave me wonderful hugs)! The theme of the contest was TRANSFORMATION and in this piece, I wanted to take this opportunity to explore what Hannibal himself thinks of his own transformation. 
> 
> Big thanks to my amazing betas [fragile-teacup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrs_Gene_Hunt/pseuds/fragile-teacup) and [wraithsonwings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wraithsonwings/pseuds/wraithsonwings)! Gifting to the wonderful [HotSauce418](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotSauce418/pseuds/HotSauce418) , read it in health honey! Big hugs and love <333
> 
>  

 

“Dinner shouldn’t be too long, Will. I’ve decided to make  _ Lechon Asado _ as our main. I hope that sounds appetizing.”

Hannibal threw what he hoped was an enticing smile over his shoulder at Will, before setting to work snipping the tender mint, cilantro and oregano from where they grew on the window sill — the warm Cuban sun more than outmatching the growth he could ever have produced in Baltimore with his old, carefully controlled living wall. 

_ Sometimes things flourish when you relinquish control. _

As usual, Will was hovering quietly in the doorway to the kitchen, a room he still seemed to consider Hannibal’s domain. But Hannibal had caught the rueful smile that twitched at the corners of Will’s mouth as he crossed his arms and leaned on the doorframe.

_ Sometimes things become even more beautiful when you let them unfold as they will. _

“I don’t have any idea what that is, Hannibal, and I’m not even going to ask. I wouldn’t want to spoil the fun you’ll have enlightening me over dinner. I won’t even give you the satisfaction of asking if it’s a  _ who _ instead of a  _ what. _ ”

_ What hatches follows its nature and is beyond me. _

Hannibal chuckled, relishing the playful note he heard in Will’s voice — that teasing tone so often bubbling just below the surface _. Familiarity. Affection. Love.  _ Hannibal felt an increasingly familiar warmth flush through him. Never in all his life had he so thoroughly enjoyed being teased.

_ Perhaps you have moved beyond yourself as well. _

Hannibal threw another suggestive smile at Will before turning his attention back to his waiting ingredients. Shirtsleeves already rolled up, his fingers worked almost absently behind his back, deftly tying the strings of his immaculate white apron. The muscle memory of the action was as ingrained within him as his grip on the chef’s knife he pulled from the block beside him.  As always, he took a second to appreciate the glint of light off the blade.

_ Still, some things remain the same, etched inside us like cut marks on our bones. _

“Merely a simple pork shoulder, but the marinade should prove quite lovely now that I’ve been able to procure  _ this _ .”

Hannibal reached for his new bottle of olive oil, acquired only that day. Finding quality ingredients in Cuba had proven more challenging than he would have preferred, but nothing was insurmountable to a smooth tongue and a ready wallet. It had taken him forever to find such high quality oil and he was already anticipating its delicate flavor, anointing their taste buds with the taste of Italian sunshine.

_ Alchemy in a bottle. _

He placed it on the kitchen island that stood between them, trying to lure Will further into the room. His ploy rewarded him with a few measured steps, almost reluctant, but also a smirk and a single raised eyebrow.

“Well then, I suppose there will be rare quarry on the table tonight after all. Please tell me you were the only one who paid dearly for its acquisition.”

Hannibal held up his hands in mock innocence.

“Acquired by only mildly dubious means I assure you, and entirely monetary at that. I merely strive to  _ bring home the bacon _ , as they say... and considering the pork was…  somewhat pedestrian… I managed to track down the oil instead.” Hannibal tipped his nearby wineglass towards Will in a saucy toast. “To a successful hunt.”

Will’s eyes glittered with wry amusement as he smiled back, but his body language was already shifting the longer he lingered in the kitchen — fingers drumming awkwardly on the stainless steel countertop, his eyes shifting around the room, never really landing on anything in particular except the door to the terrace behind Hannibal.

Will had never seemed entirely comfortable in the kitchen with him, but it was always the most pronounced at dinnertime. Breakfast and lunch were different, when they would throw together simple meals — Will usually helping with this or that between teasing remarks about Hannibal’s perfectionism, the banter easy between them. But dinnertime was another matter entirely. Each night, as Hannibal set the stage for the evening’s meal, Will would quietly retreat to the beach outside their villa, or to the boat moored at their dock, leaving Hannibal to his own devices while he played with the dogs or tinkered with the boat motor. It had become almost a routine between them, one they had never actually discussed.

_ Some things are etched deeply within him too. _

To Hannibal, Will looked adrift in the big kitchen… un-anchored… standing at the furthest possible corner of the island, his hands pressed against the edge like he was anxious to push off. As if noticing it himself, Will picked up the bottle of olive oil instead, awkwardly turning it in both hands, his slight smile almost apologetic.

A sudden and complete memory flashed through Hannibal’s mind then, a kind of double exposure — Will standing in his old kitchen in Baltimore, weight shifting from one foot to the other, hands wringing a surprisingly lovely bottle of wine between them as his eyes flitted around the room, looking for both an excuse to stay and the nearest exit — that same smile masking the urge to retreat. When he spoke, Hannibal heard them both, the present Will echoing the past…

_ I should go. _

“Well, I guess I’ll get out of your hair then.”

_ I wouldn’t be very good company. _

“Just call me when you want me to come in and eat.”

Hannibal heard his own voice softly echoing down the halls of his memory palace.

_ Are you sure you can’t stay? _

“Of course, Will. I always do.”

Hannibal searched Will’s face, waiting for his eyes to meet his own. When they finally did, he could see the affection they held, the cutting humor still dancing there, but also that vague uncertainty — the soft, almost shy smile on his lips that only managed to strengthen Hannibal’s sense of temporal juxtaposition.

_ How different we both are from that night, but how much the same. Then he was merely sniffing around your bait, nibbling at the hook you dangled before him for your own trifling curiosity, and now… it is he who has caught and landed you. _

That Will could still manifest that charmingly awkward shyness around him — the same Will who could tease him mercilessly, cutting straight through him with only a look, the same Will who did not hesitate to demand of him all manner of intimate delights, and who could snuff out a life with the same ferocity — that this same Will could still smile at him like that… to Hannibal, it was miraculous.  _ Will _ was miraculous in his becoming, both in how he had changed, but even more in how he had stayed so perfectly  _ himself _ .

Hannibal must have been staring for too long because Will broke the spell with a whistle, calling for the dogs while placing the bottle of oil back on the counter. The pack came bounding around the corner — a bevy of nails clacking on the terracotta tile, each preening for a place under their master’s firm but tender hand; every head acknowledged, each need fulfilled with an amused smile.

“I’m sure it will be delicious, Hannibal. It always is.”

And with that, Will moved towards the patio door at the rear of the kitchen with the dogs trailing after him. As he passed, his fingers trailed lightly along Hannibal’s forearm, giving him a gentle squeeze, his own quiet acknowledgement. The gesture was somewhere between reassuring and teasing, reserved and generous, awkward and graceful, all at the same time. As always, it felt like an electric current on Hannibal’s skin.

But then Will was out the door without another word, the clamor of the dogs gone with him, the silence of the kitchen striking Hannibal as its own sort of presence. He knew he would never get used to the effect Will had on him — that ability to undo each and every stitch in his person suit with only a touch, a word, a smile.

With a sigh, Hannibal forced himself to turn his attention back to the task at hand. The concept of transformation still played at the corners of his mind, and there was nothing like the act of cooking to exercise the true meaning of alchemy — each ingredient coming together to make something greater than the sum of its parts, something wondrous.

Centering his cut of meat on the cutting board, Hannibal set to work. He had always taken great pleasure in the slide of a sharp blade through flesh. The feel of it under his hand, the slow glide, the tiny catches and tugs of sinew and meat and bone whispering through the edge of the knife to his palm — flesh speaking to flesh, the singing whisper of metal. It had always seemed to him like a quiet symphony, an intimate performance of blood and muscle, just for him. Alone.

But standing at the stainless steel countertop in their well-appointed kitchen, Hannibal couldn’t help but feel as though that symphony was missing a crucial note. And it wasn’t because the meat on his cutting board was merely pork.

_ Our kitchen. _

_ Ours. _

Bringing the point of his knife to rest on the cutting board, Hannibal paused, breath quiet in his chest. Listening. Feeling. Assessing.

_ You miss him. Even now. You miss him the way you would miss a part of yourself. _

Transformation, it seemed, had come for him as well, and he knew there was no point in denying it. The idea of wondrous change seemed to permeate everything. The very passage of time a transformation from order to disorder and back to order — flesh and blood, bone and breath becoming an ever-shifting consciousness. Innumerable flames inevitably snuffed out to become meat once again to decorate their table and begin the cycle anew. It was all so simple, but so miraculous that  they were both a part of it, together. The very meals he prepared were all a part of the endless evolution of this life they now shared.

_ You want to share this with him too. You no longer want this to be yours, alone. _

Hannibal found himself positioning his cutting board so he could watch Will through the window, the sunset off the gulf silhouetting Will’s form as he sat on the end of the dock, the dogs still circling around him adoringly. The sight made Hannibal smile.

_ I am not the only one on his hook. And we are, all of us, happy to be there. _

It occurred to Hannibal, and not for the first time, how fascinating it was that this thought no longer unnerved him. When had that happened exactly? When had he become content with the notion that his very being was inextricably tied to another’s? Not only content, but happy? When had he changed so much? He knew it hadn’t happened all at once.

Another flash of memory had Hannibal struggling through knee-high snow, Will’s limp and bloody body cradled to his chest like a macabre bride. Unfamiliar words reverberating through his mind like a mantra…  _ save him… protect him… forgive him… need him…  _ until he was too exhausted for anything other than Will’s name to beat in time with his heavy footfalls — eventually giving up even that  simply to watch how the morning dawn crept over the fitful curves and hollows of Will’s face as he slept. He remembered how he had given up everything that morning, how it had felt to give himself over like a lamb to the slaughter, a penitent at the altar of Will’s wrath and reckoning.

He had told himself then that it was all a part of the game — yet another hand to play that would force Will’s own — but even then he had known better. Even now he knew he would do it all over again if only he could know that he would end up here, watching Will through the window of their kitchen.

_ A kitchen he feels the need to escape from… _

Hannibal put down the knife. The food could wait. He moved to the door and out into the gathering dusk, striding purposefully towards the dock. A surprising tightness in his chest betrayed alien nerves that only Will could produce in him.

_Only he can lay you so bare._ _By seeing you as you were, he made you who you are, and you know you are better for it._

All the time Hannibal had spent coaxing Will to embrace his becoming, to accept it and how they could be…  _ together _ … It had consumed his every thought for so long that he had remained blind to his own transformation for longer than he cared to admit. Will had seen through him though. He had known. Long ago, Will had known that even Hannibal couldn’t escape the crucible of their impact on each other, like colliding stars. Fate and circumstance.

_ Did you believe you could change me? The way I changed you? _

_ I already did. _

It had been true even then, but he had been unwilling to admit to it. Fear and love are akin. There is a sense of falling with both — a loss of control. Hannibal had tried his best to pretend that his armor had not been pierced, tried to pretend that he hadn’t done everything in his power to see if Will could be the one to pierce it. He hadn’t been ready to accept it all those years ago, had instead done everything he could to deny and destroy the tether between them.

But there was no use in pretending anymore, not in this new life. He had been changed, they both had, but perhaps him most of all. He had been cast adrift in the roiling Atlantic, but Will had been his anchor; the sight of him now sitting on their little dock anchored him still, just as much as the familiar feel of a knife in his hand or the smell of fresh cut herbs on the air.

_ Our choices change us but love transforms us. Falling in love is the ultimate act of alchemy. He pulled down my walls and broke all my rules and now we are something entirely new, yet still entirely ourselves. _

His footsteps on the wooden dock made Will stir, but still he kept his eyes on the water. It wasn’t until Hannibal sat in the chair next to him and slipped his hand into Will’s, palm to palm, that he roused himself, looking over with a distracted smile. His face was beautiful in the dying glow of the day, washing his features in bloody crimson light.

“Sorry, Hannibal. I must have zoned out…the waves… Is dinner ready already?”

Hannibal turned in the chair and sat forward, bringing Will’s hand to rest between both of his, his gaze searching out contact with Will’s. When their eyes met, Will’s brows knit together, the look on his face almost wary as he sensed Hannibal’s urgency. Hannibal gave his hand a gentle squeeze, trying to alleviate the tension.

_ If you have truly changed, there is no longer room for things left unsaid. _

“What, Hannibal? What is it?”

_ Just ask him. _

“Why do you never stay in the kitchen at dinner, Will?”

Will’s eyes darted away quickly and he tried to pull back his hand. But Hannibal held him fast, speaking his next words in a rush.

“I only ask because, whatever the reason, I want you to know that I wish you would.”

Will looked up at him suddenly, searching his eyes with that remarkable piercing blue. It was like being dissected under the glare of floodlights. Will seemed to be searching for the hook in his words, searching for the lie that could pierce him. Hannibal felt a pang at that, deep in his gut — he knew that he may never be able to completely quiet that instinct in Will, that he had been the cause of its awakening over and over again, but it also felt like something he would never stop hoping and trying for. He knew he would always have to fight for Will, to prove to him that he could be both himself and someone new, someone that Will could trust.

He felt the moment when Will let his guard down, muscles relaxing, eyes softening, his free hand moving to rub the back of his neck in that way that made Hannibal remember the man he had met so long ago in Jack’s office. When he finally spoke, Will’s voice was quiet but direct.

“I don’t know, Hannibal. It always felt like…  _ yours _ somehow… your place, your time, your…  _ design _ . I didn’t want to take it away from you. When you cook dinner in there… the way you are when you’re in your element like that… it reminds me of the time we spent together… before… of who you were, before all this, before  _ me _ . And as fucked up as it is, I know you were happy then, before we became…us. I didn’t want to take that one thing away from you. Sometimes I feel like we’ve both had to change so much to be who we are now, together. I didn’t want you to resent me.”

“And do you resent me, Will? Do you resent me for the ways that you have changed?”

Will paused for only a second but Hannibal’s heart was in his throat. Seeing the look on his face, Will squeezed his hand gently and offered him a soft smile and a tiny shake of his head.

“No, Hannibal. I don’t. I don’t resent you. I love you, and the truth is I’m happier here with you than I ever was before all of this. But sometimes it’s hard to accept that  _ change _ in myself. It’s strange to me that the only guilt I feel now is that this is all so… easy. For so long I felt like guilt and regret were all I had, that they made up my entire being, and the lack of it can be… unnerving. Sometimes I don’t recognize myself without that shadow perched on my back.”

Will sat back in his chair and looked out at the ocean, the ceaseless lapping of the waves a constant since time immemorial. But still he held tight to Hannibal’s hand.

“We have both of us changed in this new life, Will, and not all of those changes are comfortable. Before you, I was never lonely. Loneliness can only be understood if one has experienced its absence. But since you came into my life, I feel your absence keenly, just as I rejoice in having you with me. Neither of those feelings were part of who I was, but I feel no less  _ myself _ for their presence now. I only feel more whole.”

“And you wouldn’t prefer to go back to how you were before? Alone but self-sufficient?”

Hannibal let a low, easy chuckle escape him, pulling Will’s surprised gaze back from the dark horizon.

“And remain ignorant of the beauty of this new life? Never, Will. That answer has always been simple. I would pay more dearly than I have to keep things just as they are. I believed I was happy before, and in many ways I was, but now…” Hannibal took a deep breath before giving voice to a thought that had long simmered deep in his gut. “It’s almost as if I dreamed you before I ever saw you, Will… that I missed you before we even met. You are everything I never even knew I wanted, and I would pull down the moon if it meant I could keep you forever.”

Will said nothing for a long moment, and Hannibal merely waited. He knew this kind of talk made Will uncomfortable, that his empathy could leave him feeling at the mercy of being swept away by the strength of Hannibal’s devotion. They so rarely talked about  _ them, _ and Hannibal had learned how to stop pushing. He had learned to let Will come to things in his own time.

Eventually Will let out a long sigh and stood up, letting go of Hannibal’s hand. As Hannibal steeled himself for Will to walk away without another word, he was surprised to feel a warm hand come to rest on the top of his head instead, tracing down to cup his chin and tilt his face up. Will stood over him, silhouetted now by stars and moon, bright enough to show the playful smile that spread across his face.

_ Beautiful. _

“Well then. I suppose that settles it. Who would have thought Hannibal Lecter would want to share his kitchen? You know you’re going to have to let me chop things how I chop them, right?”

With that he pulled Hannibal to his feet, surprising a laugh out of him. Will cut it short with a fierce kiss, lips lingering on his before giving him a playful shove towards the house. The feel of Will’s arm circling his waist as they walked through the sand made Hannibal’s heart swell in time with Will’s shrill whistle for the dogs to follow.

_ Love. This is love. Change never ceases, and never ceases to surprise. _

“You know, I can still never entirely predict you, Will.”

“Well the feeling is mutual, Hannibal. I have to keep you on your toes, don’t I? And hey, maybe this time  _ you _ would care to sous chef for  _ me _ ?”

Hannibal threw an incredulous look at Will, but let it dissolve quickly into a wry and indulgent smile. 

“You know Will, there’s not another person alive who would ever suggest such a thing to me. But if  _ anyone _ could reduce me to sous chef, if would be you.”

With a low chuckle, he returned Will’s embrace, pulling him in tight to his side as they neared the house, the cheery glow from the windows transforming the house to a boat adrift on a peaceful sea. 

_ Home. _

**Author's Note:**

> As always, THANK YOU FOR READING! Kudos and friendly comments are magical, and you are magical for leaving them! 
> 
> Come flail at me about Hannibal on [Tumblr](https://thisismydesignhannibal.tumblr.com/) !


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